The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Bad weekend came as double surprise
No one was going to win this league by Christmas. The competition is too intense
It was a bad weekend for the two Dundee clubs – and I have to confess that I didn’t see either result coming.
I thought United would show a positive reaction after their loss to Alloa before the international break and that Dundee would have too much for Partick Thistle, even factoring in Ian McCall’s positive impact as their new manager.
I would suggest that the 4-0 defeat for Robbie Neilson’s players against Queen of the South was the bigger shock of the two.
My expectation was that the United players would be desperate to show that they could bounce back after Alloa but instead they were well beaten down at Palmerston.
On Tayside, no one at Dens could have predicted Dundee’s collapse after leading 1-0 going into the final five minutes.
Some people may say the manager James McPake should have done this or that, but surely he was entitled to feel his players could see the game out.
Taken as a whole, the results in the Championship on Saturday were staggering (joint leaders Ayr United also lost at Dunfermline and Inverness were held to a draw at home by Alloa). The exception, of course, was Arbroath’s win at Gayfield over Morton!
Some people did think that United and Dundee would be out there by now, well clear at the top of the league.
However, there was always a danger of being disrespectful to the other teams in the division in thinking that way.
When Lawrence Shankland scores as many goals as he has done for United it is easy to get carried away. It was premature to say that, though. No one was going to win this league by Christmas. The competition is too intense.
Talking of Arbroath, we were desperate to bounce back after losing to Clyde in the Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer Cup.
We did just that in style by beating Morton 1-0 on Saturday.
We are at the end of the first quarter of the season now and I think we can be reasonably happy with how it’s gone so far.
There are a few bigger clubs below us in the table and we are just one point and one place behind Dundee.
That looks pretty decent to me.